I have an 83 generator motor that instead of the 23 little rollers you normally put in for the counter shaft output bearing - it has a big Ball Bearing! Straight factory installed as it is in the casting and not welded up and machined.
I need to get a transmission for it and want to know if I need to use a different counter shaft - or is anything else affected? It does not have the alternator so I don't think it needs a Late 84' shaft - because the clutch would not have fit (I have the primary parts and they all look like any other 77' to 83 that I have seen). I also measured the ID of the bearing and it is slightly smaller than the OD of the counter shaft I have from a 79'. Anybody know what the deal is with this? I asked at the local HD shop and they just told me 'those were the dark years' - right.

Since std roller shaft is 1", 25.4mm, you need a std shaft and have it ground to 25mm. HD tolerance in inch is between .9839 and .9843

Bore in case is not the full 15mm, just 1/2" and the bearing sticks out a bit on the inside.

I personnaly use there a single lip roller bearing, same dimms, ref NJ205, which allows good interference fit on shaft and case but easier dismantling. Use the std ear washer to set up end play as per std.

Patrick

KRTTXRTT

21st June 2012, 00:53

Thanks Patrick!

I have never seen this before on a late Sportster - with a generator.
You are also correct about the bearing mounting - with a portion hanging out into the case. The bearing in this one is stamped England and 'appears' to be numbered 8383 - very small print and really old eyes.

So if I run the NJ205, will I still need to have the shaft ground (likely turned as I don't have a centerless grinder)? Or is that more a function of the shaft tolerance?

No nub sticking out to hold the end washer vertical either. Thanks for your help!!

brucstoudt

21st June 2012, 01:00

krttxrtt,aren't you talking about the transmission mainshaft? [23,rollers]

brucstoudt

21st June 2012, 01:03

thank's for that info,patrick.i,might plan on upgrading,someday.

KRTTXRTT

21st June 2012, 02:04

krttxrtt,aren't you talking about the transmission mainshaft? [23,rollers]

Yes - you are correct! I should have said Main Shaft output bearing.
On mine it is a Ball Bearing. Patrick's has been converted to Timken style (found the pictures on his site). Mine is not like his...

Doing research I find HD lists bearings for Late 84 as PN 8888. Yet they also list a pinion bearing for this period PN 9118... If i had both transmissions in front of me, this would be a lot easier!

The confusion for me is to figure out what I need to put a transmission together for this beast? Will the late 84 Main Shaft fit into the remains of an 82' Tranny? I cannot use a Late 84 Trans because this is a generator case bike. Late 84 was already alternator - which sits behind the clutch so all of the clutch gear bits are different...

KRTTXRTT

21st June 2012, 06:07

Here is a shot of the case in case it helps?

http://i1145.photobucket.com/albums/o517/KRTTXRTT/IMG_3714.jpg

ryder rick

21st June 2012, 13:19

A little problem with the Left side crank bearing?
Or did the crank come apart?

The mainshaft bearing is labled "630B England RHP" and it has an ID of.820" I am wondering if the 84 - 85 Sporster main shaft will fit this?? There was no transmission in the case when I got it, so not sure what they did before?

barefoot

22nd June 2012, 13:55

The mainshaft bearing is labled "630B England RHP" and it has an ID of.820" I am wondering if the 84 - 85 Sporster main shaft will fit this?? There was no transmission in the case when I got it, so not sure what they did before?
Hmm. 13/16 is .8125 and .820" comes out to 20.83 mm so ... ermm ... how are you measuring that bore ?

KRTTXRTT

22nd June 2012, 15:50

BF - just using a caliper as I haven't taken the bearing out yet.. Likely it is .825" and has some oil or crud in the way. The last iron heads 84-85 had some different bits in the trans and I have looked around for a measurement of their mainshaft as I know it is different from previous years. My hunch is it may fit this and then I will just use an earlier drive gear on the other end?

thefrenchowl

22nd June 2012, 16:11

Hi,

All iron heads had the 23 rollers till the end, so your case is not std...

And 20mm or so looks a bit on the thin size for an output shaft... you'll be well out the hardened skin if you mod the std 1" shaft to suit, never mind fitting a std sproket after the mods, there won't be much left of the splines!!!

Check the OD to see if the metric bearing will fit, 52mm, HD recommended bore between 2"0464 and 2"0476

Patrick

KRTTXRTT

22nd June 2012, 18:16

Thanks Patrick,

I think I will be starting over and likley to go with the setup you are running? I will know what I can do once I knock the bearing out and see what the bore is. Lord knows what must have been in there before?

thefrenchowl

22nd June 2012, 20:15

Hi,

That's what my set up looks like on my supercharged KHK:

http://www.harleykrxlrtt.com/images/khksprocketmod.jpg

The rollers are trapped on the outer ring, 52mm, and the inner race, 25mm, has its single lip facing the mainshaft gear, thus dead easy to slip in and out to adjust end play, unlike a ball bearing that needs press fit OD and ID...

Same set up on my crank drive shaft:

http://www.harleykrxlrtt.com/images/khkdrivemoda.jpg

To me, it looks like your cases' PO started a race conversion, see extra holes inside cases for oil drainage but stopped on the way when his project hit a brick wall... Likely your OD won't be bigger than 2" so you can bore it metric for suitable bearing. These ball bearings were used there on XRs, so good enough for 100bhp no doubt, albeit with limited life span. Roller set up as mine should increase that by quite a bit...

Patrick

KRTTXRTT

23rd June 2012, 04:13

Patrick you have a good eye! These cases are 83' XR1000 and for the most part supposed to be the same as a Sportster of that year - except for the cylinder studs and location. These cam out of a BOTT bike and I am sure suffered for it!
Remeasured the bearing now that it is out and it is 2.439" OD X .669" Deep x .984" ID.
I assume the OD should be 2 7/16" and the depth seems odd? Anyway, the main shafts I have laying around measure .991" and .992" and could easily be smoothed enough to fit. I like your set up as it would be stronger and easier to live with. I can figure the transmission bit out from here, it was just a shoc to see that in these cases! My next hurdle will be repairing the pinion bore. This one is just starting to crack out to the cam bearings and I think I will make a Hat for it that bolts to the case face and contains the rear portion of the cam bearing bores. I will post it and see what others think as there are many with great ideas on this forum.
Just noticed in your reply that the KHK is Supercharged!? I will have to go back and study your photos as I never saw that one. I do like the dual carb KHK/KR bike you built and the detail was great on the carb/intake fitment! That takes a BUNCH of carving in cast iron no less...

barefoot

23rd June 2012, 06:07

Remeasured the bearing now that it is out and it is 2.439" OD X .669" Deep x .984" ID.
I assume the OD should be 2 7/16" and the depth seems odd?
62 mm o.d., 25 mm i.d. Standard ball bearing.

Almost all ball bearings are metric. Every once in a while you come across an inch-size ball bearing but it's going to be in something ancient .... You'll come across inch sized roller bearings more frequently. And Timkens are usually inch-sized. Or were until the rest of the world discovered the taper roller bearing. Funny thing - for decades the DIN (German) standard involute splines were actually just translated inch-size splines. Now they have real metric involute splines, but it took thirty years.

Btw, the metric system sucks :p

Anyway, the main shafts I have laying around measure .991" and .992" and could easily be smoothed enough to fit.
Quick job in a cylindrical grinder. You're not going to take enough off to hurt anything and since the shaft won't be the bearing race this way, it'll be fine. I'm not a big fan of the Owl Method (sorry, Patrick :) Bearing races are made of very high-quality vacuum-melt, fine-grained steel. That's what makes them last a long time. The mainshafts in your transmission are just normal old everyday case-hardened 8620. It's better to use a bearing with a real inner race if you can. Sometimes you can't, there's no room, but if possible ....

btw, I'd do the mod in a grinder. I know, it's so small you could probably stick the shaft in your hand drill and work it down with emery paper and I'm guilty of shortcuts myself but the better the shaft fits, the better it functions. This is your output shaft, maybe not the best place to cut through the trees. If the part that fits the bearing inner race is not really round and a very good fit you will eventually get fretting, which is not a good thing.

Does Donnie Rich still do case repairs ? He had all the fixtures and info for fixing entire blown-out transmissions and did really good work.

thefrenchowl

23rd June 2012, 07:01

bartefoot: sorry, Patrick Bearing races are made of very high-quality vacuum-melt, fine-grained steel. That's what makes them last a long time.

:laugh The roller bearing inner races are on me shafts, rollers don't roll directly on them!!! I'm not THAT daft!!! But single lip, so they slide out with the shaft, don't stay in the cases with the outer bit.

But I'm a fan of "as small as poss. (or can get away with...) everywhere" hence I use the smaller/narrower 52mm OD bearings...

Patrick

barefoot

23rd June 2012, 07:53

:laugh The roller bearing inner races are on me shafts, rollers don't roll directly on them!!!
Oh, sorry. I thought you made a shaft with a bigger diameter there and ran it as the inner race ...

I'm not THAT daft!!!
For a dragster it's not so daft ... in fact, it'd be pretty smart. You'd get a much bigger diameter right there at your output shaft, where all the ponies of that blown hogley go to the back wheel. And you wouldn't have to change anything in the cases to do it. I just thought that KRXRTT would be going more than 1/4 mile at a time, so not as good for him :)

KRTTXRTT

25th June 2012, 19:39

BF and FO

On these later Sporster cranks - the journal IS the race on the pinion side...

Now that I am starting to understand this more, it looks like FO DOES have a nice set up! And thanks for the clarity on metric bearings..

KRTTXRTT

25th June 2012, 20:36

"it looks like your cases' PO started a race conversion, see extra holes inside cases for oil drainage but stopped on the way when his project hit a brick wall..."

Patrick those extra holes are: one on the side is for the windage tray, and the one on the front is the oil drain from the front head.

I think his brick wall was a crank failure on the primary side as these two case halves do not have matching belly numbers! They seem to mate up nicely though.. If I use ball bearings, it would not matter as much!

barefoot

26th June 2012, 04:13

On these later Sporster cranks - the journal IS the race on the pinion side...
Ick. .050" case depth on a shaft that's already too small. Asking for trouble ....

Patrick those extra holes are: one on the side is for the windage tray, and the one on the front is the oil drain from the front head.
Sounds like one of those attempts to make the transmission cavity and the crank cavity share the same oil and enlarge the volume of the crank cavity ? Those didn't seem to work out too well. And I'd use a synthetic gear oil in the transmission these days. They work really well.

If I use ball bearings, it would not matter as much!
No, still matters a lot. Getting all those shafts to line up really well is important., you shouldn't let misalignments slide because "the bearing can take a little misalignment." Your gears will thank you profusely ....

KRTTXRTT

26th June 2012, 04:47

"the bearing can take a little misalignment." Your gears will thank you profusely ....

BF - I have been looking around for the shop that can make sure the bearing bores are in alignment when the case halves are bolted up. Most advise me to put it together and see if everything turns without binding - if so - then good. Honest I have had that answer many times so far. Tomorrow I am supposed to meet with a fellow that does not really care what the object is, he is just touted as a very good machinist. One positive is I noticed that his shop has many manual vintage tools (end mill, lathe with 10' bed) that he has kept from his father's era, even though 90% of the shop is multiaxis - hands off - CNC. I have looked at the HD laping gear used to keep the bores usable and realize that those solutions were likely great 50 years ago... yet I have still not found anybody that can true these up now. I will continue to look. I would do this even if the cases matched just because of how it is going to be used. I was just being smart ass by pointing out that that IS one of the benefits of running ball bearings. Remeber I come from Ducati land and those old Bevel bikes were FULL of ball bearings and gears... And if they don't turn on a common axis, you will have problems!

When I talk to the machinist, if nothing else I will check for true by having him make up some aluminum plugs that should show if things are on or off - each side turned to the bearing bore ID and then see how they fit and where the die comes off when the cases are bolted together. I was planning on using this technique for lining up the hat discussed elsewhere.

KRTTXRTT

26th June 2012, 04:57

"And I'd use a synthetic gear oil in the transmission these days. They work really well."

I use Mobil 1 V Twin 20/50 in about everything air cooled! The only oil I have seen that will take temperature like that stuff is good old Castrol R - as in the bean oil from days gone by. RedLine racing 40 wt works real well too. My way of agreeing as I am still stunned when I pull some of the old Ducati's down that were run on Synthetic. Golden Spectro synthetic has a good lube based on looking at a Ducati crank pin (usually blue!) that was run on that stuff. HD in the race guide for the XR1000 suggests using B&M Trick Shift for an automatic transmission for the gear box when racing...

barefoot

26th June 2012, 08:26

The only oil I have seen that will take temperature like that stuff ....

:D

http://feenix.darktech.org/oil.jpg

I think the easiest way to line-bore cases is to clean up the center joint first. Square up the mill. Skim the outside surface parallel to the joint surface. Bolt down one side of the cases on your fresh parallel surface and indicate the hole you want to bore. Bolt the two case halves together snugly. Bore the top case. Remove carefully, bore the bottom case.

Or buy a deVlieg .....

Willing to hear better suggestions ....

Maybe you can talk the Doc into doing it. Otherwise, I know someone who can do an excellent job for you but he's a pain in the ass. If you get desperate, send a pm.

edit : I keep thinking about your project .... ya know, I hate to do this (where's the little devil emoticon ?) but while you're in there welding away and all that, there's some wasted room behind the clutch. And you don't need a starter for a race bike. The five speed from the later Sporty is supposedly (I haven't measured one) only about a half-inch wider than the earlier four speeds. A special trap door, a modified clutch, worst case is kick out the right hand side of the gearbox case and weld it out a little farther away then fiddle with the cover to make it look stock .... 5 speed would be pretty trick on a road racer. While you're having impractical dreams* may as well dream big :)

* I don't think it's that impractical, actually. If you're going to be firing up the welder, anyhow.

KRTTXRTT

28th June 2012, 14:31

The five speed from the later Sporty is supposedly (I haven't measured one) only about a half-inch wider than the earlier four speeds. A special trap door, a modified clutch, worst case is kick out the right hand side of the gearbox case and weld it out a little farther away then fiddle with the cover to make it look stock .... 5 speed would be pretty trick on a road racer.

BF
There is a fellow in PA goes by the handle XRNUT that has built some very nice bikes. The way he figured out how to 'convert to 5 speed' was by bandsawing an EVO and the XL case and joing them. He was an ace fabricator for a living and described the process as one of welding garbage to gold - the XL case not being the gold. Made a jig and took weeks to weld it up -stress relieved at the end etc. After doing all of this, he proposed asking S&S to cast a case and leave the bore studs alone etc. If he is reading this, maybe he will chime in? Anyway, I picked up that he IS a very good welder and this looked very tough to me. I may try this later after I get the bike to run? I wanted to do that in the first place because you cannot use Evo cases in vintage class -they Do know better ;+)

Found my bearing for the trans and for Chinese poo they wanted 9.67 - well made SKF USA 27.00 Funny but the guy at the bearing dist. said that many of the commodity bearings are no worse for being made in China? Story goes that they know if they produce rot in those sizes - the show is over. I still paid up for USA on the other bearings I needed, and likely always will. I remember watching a guy unload an endmill in about 1976? Anyway, came from China -Great Deal! - and as they were lowering it down from the boom - a giant chunk of the cast stand fell off like bondo!

barefoot

28th June 2012, 15:02

The way he figured out how to 'convert to 5 speed' was by bandsawing an EVO and the XL case and joing them.
Probably necessary for a street bike where you have to start it somehow but I think you could modify the early cases and trap door to fit an evo 5 speed in a race bike. Would be fun to try, anyhow ...

Found my bearing for the trans and for Chinese poo they wanted 9.67 - well made SKF USA 27.00 Funny but the guy at the bearing dist. said that many of the commodity bearings are no worse for being made in China?
Probably no difference in commodity bearings. If it's just going in a lawnmower or something, it won't matter. Accuracy of Chinese bearings is fine, they use the same equipment as US bearing manufacturers. In fact, the machines probaly belong to US or Japanese bearing manufacturers. The big difference will be materials and heat treat.

But then, I can tell you some appalling stories about a US bearing company in North Carolina. And several Black Hawk helicopters that fell out of the sky because American purchasing agents and "business leaders" are effing morons. The Chinese aren't screwing you : it's your own 1%-ers who want all the money for themselves and honestly believe that working people are trash. You wouldn't believe the crap I see from American "businessmen" dealing with China. Good thing I am not in the US anymore or instead of dreaming about Sportster engines I'd be designing a high-performance guillotine.

Wait until you go to buy two spherical roller bearings from SKF. I bet they're not cheap :p Oh well.

T. Clark

3rd July 2012, 11:37

I'm in a similar situation with my 83 cases. After 6 months of trying to find a good replacement set of cases I think I would rather get mine old ones machined and modified. I like what thefrenchfowl has done to his mainshaft bearing. How would that bearing set last compared to the original loose 23 rollers? Also, is that bearing sitting in the cast alloy? If so, is there any danger of it coming loose or damaging the case? It would certainly be easier to machine the case to fit the bearing than fitting a steel sleeve into the case to support the bearing.
Tim.

thefrenchowl

3rd July 2012, 13:44

Hi TClark

Steel bearing race in alloy cases is VERY OK as long as the fit tolerances are respected (too loose, race will spin in case, too tight, balls or rollers will have no clearance left and chew the races...)

I quoted the HD tolerance, max and min in alloy for the 52mm bearing in a previous post here...

BUT, WARNING, early cases are what I call "proper" alloy, sand cast with decent additives like magnesium... From late 70s, more and more is die cast in monkey metal with plenty of lead or whatever added (that's what they call progress, Evo guys, take notice...), including cases, so check 1st with a decent machinist. What I know for sure, a lot of XR1000 cases were swapped under waranty cause the races were spinning inside the CAST IN steel locations... Could just be bad luck, could be the cases can't stand any power

Longevity, don't really know, these ball or roller bearings are so cheap, I usually change them when I have to get in there for one reason or the other...

My KHK crank with roller bearings on both sides did 4000 miles in 2/3 years before I opened it (no trap door, so not doing that every year!!!), t'was fine but changed them anyway...

i,knew i,saw a,similar bearing set-up,in mrmom9r's drag bike.got my attention right away.how to get rid of those 23,mainshaft,roller's. thank's for posting this,don. is that barbell sized plate for reinforcing the trap door?

mrmom9r

4th July 2012, 02:06

As I noted in the post, the plate on the door carries a second bearing for the clutch gear.

Once you don't care about a kickstarter there's a lot of room for bearings back there. This is the most important mod for a high gear bike to stop mainshaft breakage.

T. Clark

4th July 2012, 10:24

Thanks frenchfowl for the info. In my 83 cases all 3 cast in steel race supports have varying degrees of looseness. Searching on ebay for 6 months shows a lot of late model cases with patched up sprocket shaft repairs. Got me thinking that late model cases must have soft alloy. I know a good machinist who suggested replacing steel sleeves with an anodized aluminium that is very tough and has an expansion rate in between steel and alloy.

Its a lot of work and expense, but I am worried I could go to all the trouble of building my stroker on another set of stock cases and having them do the same thing. When this motor goes back together I want to ride the wheels off my bike, not do another rebuild.
Tim.

davixlrtt

4th July 2012, 22:05

http://xlforum.net/vbportal/forums/showthread.php?t=721996&page=2

Check out post 13 by "old guy withk model", this might be of interest......Davi.

T. Clark

6th July 2012, 12:17

Thanks davixlrtt. Good to see how the experts repair the cases. Will come in handy when I get mine to a repair shop.
Tim.